Selected work below. View my resume for an extended list or get in touch for a dossier.
STORYTELLER
MAINIT ILLUSION / MAINIT FANTASY
SALUHAN X LIQUID ARCHITECTURE
ARTS HOUSE, NAARM
2024
Bringing together the creative forces of Saluhan Collective and Liquid Architecture, Mainit Illusion is a multidisciplinary exhibition informed by voyeurism and the post-paradise palate of the Philippines. Working in sound, installation, and video, Filipinx artists from the Kulin and Eora Nations—Catherine Ortega-Sandow, Del Lumanta, Kenneth Suico, Mariam Ella Arcilla (Magenta House), MJ Flamiano, Neil Cabatingan (Kuya Neil), Ranima Montes, and Raquel Solier (Various Asses)—come together to present newly commissioned works across Arts House. ‘Mainit’ is a Filipino word meaning hot or humid and is a common expression used to describe the intensity of summer heat felt across the archipelago. Alongside the exhibition, Mainit Fantasy is a one-night curated spectacle of sweet and salty art, sound and performance. Visit Mainit Illiusion
PROJECT LEAD AND CO-WRITER
ARTS HOUSE
Naarm
Feb 2023-Feb 2024
The Equity—Builder is Arts House‘s living roadmap to antiracism and cultivating justice in the arts. It is also a knowledge-sharing platform that is dedicated to building a culturally safer ecology for artists and arts workers who endure barriers to access.
In step with our commitment to access through our Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP), the E—B responds to calls for structural change and the City of Melbourne’s vision for an Inclusive Melbourne. The Equity Builder comprises: Pro-Equity Glossary, Manifesto, Pledges, Collective Bookmark and Equity—Building Curatorial Initiatives.
Explore the Equity—Builder.
CO-CHAIR
RUNWAY JOURNAL
Australia
Jan 2022-Jan 2024
Runway Journal is an open-access digital publishing platform that commissions, cultivates and preserves experimental practices. As one of Australia’s longest-running artist-run initiatives, Runway is committed to advancing the field of experimental digital art and fostering the practices of emerging and underrepresented voices.
Expansive and genre-defying, Runway’s commissioning inventory includes writers, artists, cultural workers, designers, academics, coders, art historians, and community collectives. Powered by a voluntary-run board of artists and arts workers based across Australia, Runway’s carves out an independent, artist-led space for people to develop, investigate and present ideas that move the world forward.
Visit Runway Journal. Join our Mailing List.
CO-GUEST EDITOR
FINE PRINT x HYPHENATED PROJECTS
Australia
2023
Issue 33: COMPLICITY explores the collusions that enshrine our relationships with institutions, communities, strangers, and each other. Presenting the six commissioned works, we reinterpret complicity through multiple currents: there is self-accountability versus silence as survival; an action taken or denied; a hoarding of power and the divestment from it. Being complicit can also mean showing solidarity—to be an accomplice of a shared knowledge or movement. When we co-conspire, we intertwine our minds to collectively act, resist or transform. Published by fine print and edited by Mariam Ella Arcilla and Nikki Lam, Issue 33 welcomes contributions from Sara M Saleh, Leah Jing McIntosh with Rosabel Tan, Michael Sun, Timmah Ball and Stefanie Hooi.
Visit fine print | Issue 33: COMPLICITY
HOUSEKEEPER
MAGENTA HOUSE
Gadigal
2023
Step into Magenta House, a private home in Redfern opening its doors to intimate talks, eating sessions, music events, test kitchens, and an arts & culture library. Launched in April 2023, Magenta House runs programs on a rolling basis, evolving its roster to meet the cadence of its hosts and cross-field collaborators. Visiting times and formats will remain chummy due to the domestic nature of our premises, with guests and cohorts participating by invitation and communal submission. More details revealed soon. For now, we invite you to join our mailing list for intermittent announcements. Magenta House is run by Mariam Ella Arcilla & Mason Kimber.
Follow us on Instagram | Join our Mailing List
CO-EDITOR / CO-DESIGNER
THE CALAMANSI STORY
Gadigal/Naarm
2023
The Calamansi Story is a three-part, community-first legacy project by The Entree.Pinays that aims to bring awareness to the valuable contributions of Filipino migrants, especially in the domain of food and beverage, and educate Australians on the possibilities of Filipino produce through storytelling.
The anthology The Calamansi Story: Filipino Migrants in Australia features thirty-six stories that weave the humble calamansi fruit into tales of intergenerational knowledge, migration, family, ritual, trade, and culture. Published and distributed by The Entree.Pinays, the book was edited by Kristine Aquino, Grace Guinto, Fides Mae Santos and Mariam Ella Arcilla. The publication was designed by Maysie Lecciones and Mariam Ella Arcilla.
A percentage of each book sold will be donated to accredited social enterprise AGREA Philippines led by United Nations Food Systems Champion, Cherrie Atilano.
Follow TEP on Instagram | More details about the project
BOOK CURATOR
POWERHOUSE SHOP
Gadigal/Sydney
May – July 2022
The Powerhouse Shop Takeover presents an exquisite list of newly-published and re-circulated books on art & design, food culture, sociology, and the natural world.
Curated by writer and arts worker Mariam Arcilla, these eleven limited-edition titles feature contributions from over 150 writers, cooks, artists, academics, and cultural workers. Available to purchase at Powerhouse Ultimo, from 19 May-31 July 2022, all books are sourced from independent publishers across Australia.
Contributors include: Xen Nhà, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Sarah Firth, Ellie Bouhadana, Aida Azin, Keg de Souza, Priya Pavri, Leyla Stevens, and Bianca Winataputri. Publishers include Long Prawn, disorganising, Prich Press, and Heart of Hearts.
Held as part of Powerhouse Museum x Sydney Writers Festival 2022.
PRODUCER
SECRET SNACKS
4A CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ASIAN ART
Gadigal/Sydney
2022
Eat your way through Sydney’s Chinatown and Haymarket precincts with Secret Snacks: a community campaign that connects your mouth with treats across restaurants, eateries, supermarkets, and food providers in the area—through the eyes (and taste buds) of Asian artists! Find out more.
PRODUCER & HOST
INTERNO
INSTITUTE OF MODERN ART
New York / Vancouver / Meanjin / Seoul / Gadigal / Santa Fe 2020
Dialogues with creative people who are recalibrating their perspectives of home, longing, and connection during the global pandemic. Exploring the ideas and movements that amplify artistic value, creative labour and collective care in times of flux, these conversations consider what a post-pandemic future may look like, so that we can move together towards brightness. Feat: Sari-Sari (pictured), Sezzo, Sara Morawetz, and Bianca Mavrick.
GUEST HOST / COOK
IN MY KUSINA: GINISANG NG SARDINAS
2021
In My Kusina (In my Kitchen) is a home-cooking show series by The Entree.Pinays that explores the multifaceted cuisines of the Philippines through the eyes and bellies of creative chefs and home cooks. In this series, Mariam Arcilla takes viewers into her Enmore home as she cooks a feast of ginisang ng sardinas.
PRODUCER
SECRET SNACKS
Gadigal / Sydney
2021-2022
Secret Snacks is a self-guided street and online campaign that championed Haymarket and Chinatown’s multifaceted food and restaurant ecology and its power to connect with communities through the lens of cultural identity, stories, and discovery.
For 4A’s Lunar New Year program, Mariam Arcilla invited top Asian-Australian creatives Benjamin Law, Kylie Kwong, Luisa Brimble, and James Jirat Patradoon to hand-pick their favourite dishes and share a story about what makes them special. Working with designers More of Something Good, we translated these food profiles into mouth-watering artworks distributed online and via street posters and decals in participating restaurants and public sites in Sydney. From comfort slurps to big cravings, Secret Snacks connected food makers, artists and the public through tales that inspire memories, curiosity, and togetherness.
SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER
4A PAPERS
2022-2023
4A Papers is an ongoing online journal managed by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art that captures the currency of ideas and movements in Australia and the Asia region. From critical essays, reviews and dialogues, to hypertexts, travelogues and autotheory, 4A Papers chronicles the cultural transformers of our time.
PROGRAMMER & HOST
MIGHT DELETE LATER
RUNNING DOG x VERGE GALLERY
Gadigal / Sydney
2019
Featuring Running Dog contributor Mariam Arcilla in conversation with Sophie Penkethman-Young (pictured), Emma O’Neill and Danielle Karlikoff, the panel explores artworld habits, online personas, and heightened algorithms in an Instagram era. Based on personal experiences and forecasts, the speakers discussed how social media shapes digital consumption and marketing trends.
CURATOR
#PRIZENOPRIZE
THE WALLS
Yugambeh / Kombumerri / Gold Coast
2016-2018
#PRIZENOPRIZE is an exhibition series premised on shared glory. Think of this as a non-compete alternative to the nail-biting process that comes with applying for art awards or being shortlisted for the coveted Bachelor rose of the artworld. There is no prize money, entry fee or commission on sales; instead this is an open platform for experimental artists across Australia to exhibit or perform at THE WALLS. Feat: Hailey Atkins, Parallel Park, Sophie Penkethman-Young, Sonia York-Pryce, Bridie Gillman, Janis Clarke and Tessa Bergan & Adrienne Kenafake.
CURATOR & HOST
SKIRT
FIRST THURSDAYS
INSTITUTE OF MODERN ART
Meanjin/Brisbane
2017
IMA invited Mariam Arcilla to curate a multi-sensorial event featuring artists, writers, and musicians who skirt around art-form conventions. Themed around sip, slip, decode, and circumvent, the project teased out the term ‘skirt/skirting’ as it serpentines the fields of fashion, architecture, sociology, politics, and feminist theory. Feat: Michelle Xen (pictured), Emily McGuire, David Spooner, Danni Zuvela, Skullgrabber, Bianca Mavrick.
CO-FOUNDING DIRECTOR & PROGRAMMER
MIAMI MARKETTA
Yugambeh / Kombumerri / Gold Coast
2011-2014
Through a philanthropic partnership, Emma Milikins, Mariam Arcilla and Jolie Hertzberg transformed 14 disused warehouses into a creative hub with art studios, design labs, a fashion incubator, co-working spaces, a music rehearsal space, radio station, multi-event space and cafe. Initially named Rabbit & Cocoon, the program expanded to the food and culture precinct Miami Marketta, which today remains a destinational tourist attraction for locals and visitors.
CO-FOUNDING COMMITTEE MEMBER
THE SOLD COAST:
Yugambeh / Kombumerri / Gold Coast
2013
The Sold Coast committee is a group of young cultural activists from the Gold Coast who stage symposiums, think tanks and proposals to advocate for local artists and cultural infrastructure. Formed as a response to the Gold Coast City Council’s Draft Culture Strategy 2013-2023.
CO-CURATOR
NINE WIVES
Meanjin/Brisbane
2011
Grounded in home folklore, the concept show invites nine women artists to transform the gallery into a domestic home split into nine rooms. Feat: Simone Eisler (bedroom), Carolyn V Watson (dining room), Kristy Morgan / Ruby & Prankstar) (kitchen), Sue-Ching Lascelles (bathroom-pictured), Rebecca Ross (library), Dord Burrough (sun room), Zoe Porter (living room), Dhana Merritt (laundry), Lucinda Wolber (nursery). Curated by Megan Cope and Mariam Arcilla.
GALLERY DIRECTOR & CURATOR
19 KAREN CONTEMPORARY ARTSPACE
Yugambeh / Kombumerri / Gold Coast
2008-2010
As its co-founding Director, Mariam curated monthly programs featuring emerging artists from Australia and internationally, with a focus on cross-disciplines. Our program included exhibitions, publications, art lectures, networking nights, mentorships, and residencies. During 2008-2010, Mariam presented programs featuring Archie Moore, Jemima Wyman, Michael Candy, Sydney McMahon, Laura Jones, André Piguet, Joanna Kambourian, Alice Lang, Daniel McKewen, Justin Lee Williams, Mandy Beaumont, Mel Stringer, MYMO (pictured) & more. The gallery is now operated by Terri Lew.
CO-FOUNDING DIRECTOR & CURATOR
tinygold ARI
Yugambeh / Kombumerri / Gold Coast
2007-2009
Roving artist-run initiative profiling recent university graduates and unrepresented artists based on the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Northern NSW. The tinygold program included exhibitions, talks, screenings, workshops, and commissioned published writing. Feat: Tal Fitzpatrick, Alex Chomicz, Svenja Kratz, Simon De Groot, Nicholas Chalmers, Aron Burton, Sam Smith, Mari Hirata, Jae Copp, Oh Ye Denver Birds, Thor Elias Engelstad (pictured) & more. Directed by Mariam Arcilla and Megan Cope.
CURATOR
PAP SPEARS
Yugambeh / Kombumerri / Gold Coast
2009
Group exhibition responding to the cat-mousing phenomena between celebrities, the public, and the super-paparazzi, and how the dazzling/dizzying concoction of Myspace stars, phone-camera paps, and reality TV have resulted in a new breed of celeb fandom. Curated by Mariam Arcilla as part of the Young Artists Mentoring Program. Feat: Sue Dodd, Jemima Wyman (pictured), David Spooner, Sebastian Moody & more.
GALLERY ASSISTANT
GEORGE PETELIN GALLERY
PAP SPEARS
Yugambeh / Kombumerri / Gold Coast
2006-2008
Gold Coast commercial gallery representing senior and mid-career Australian artists. Directed by George Petelin. Feat: Gordon Hookey (pictured), Sydney Ball, Jenny Watson, Richard Bell, Tony Albert, Peter Alwast, Eugene Carchesio, Matthew Johnson, Vernon Ah Kee, Jennifer Herd, Vivienne Binns & more.